USA > New Jersey > Passaic County > Passaic > The Passaic valley, New Jersey, in three centuries.. Vol. 1 > Part 4
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further with his studies in that direction, frankly inform- ing his father that he purposed abandoning the profession selected for him and turning his attention to the law. The elder Kirkpatrick was bitterly disappointed, and resented the disobedience of his son to such an extent that he with- drew his support and turned the rebel from his home. His mother, as he left the house, slipped into his hand a single gold piece, a half " Joe," the savings of many years. The son never parted with this testimony of a mother's devotion, and this gold piece, still preserved with pions care by the family, is now in possession of the Hon. Andrew Kirkpat- rick, the grandson of the chief justice and now judge of the United States District Court of New Jersey.
Andrew Kirkpatrick, the elder, became associate justice of the Supreme Court in January, 1798, and after serving in that capacity for six years became chief justice, acting in both capacities for twenty-one years. He was a most accomplished jurist, not brilliant nor extraordinarily alert in his mental perceptions, but of untiring industry, of pro- found learning, of keen discrimination, and of that charac- ter of intellect which enabled him to arrive at a result which more brilliant men could not successfully attack. His decisions were rarely if ever reversed. He has left be- hind him a most enviable reputation as an honest man, an upright judge, and as one of the most accomplished jurists who ever adorned a New Jersey court. One of his lineal descendants is now a practicing lawyer in New Jersey. An- other descendant has already been mentioned as now a judge of the District Court of the United States for New Jersey.
Samuel L. Sonthard was a lawyer of great distinction in his native State, and a statesman known all over the re- public. He was born in Basking Ridge, June 9, 1787, was
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graduated at a very early age from the College of New Jer- sey, and very soon afterward went to Virginia, where he began the study of the law, paying his own expenses by em- ploying his leisure time as a private tutor. After being licensed to practice by the Virginia courts he returned to New Jersey. and in 1811 began practice at Flemington, in Hunterdon County. From that time his promotion was the most rapid ever known in the State.
In 1813 the Legislature of New Jersey passed a statute providing that Aaron Ogden and Daniel Dod, both Jersey- men, should be vested with the ex- clusive right of navigating the wa- ters of New Jersey between this State and New York with steam vessels. Prior to that time New York had, by direct law, granted the monopoly of steam navigation over its waters to the first inventor of a steam boat of a certain re- quired speed. The New Jersey statuto was undoubtedly intended SamL Southard as retaliatory for the passage of the New York act, certainly as a check to its operation. Serions doubts were entertained at the time by lawyers whether the New Jersey legislation was constitutional. Its legality, certainly, was questionable. Fulton and Livingston had succeeded in acquiring the monopoly granted by the New York Legislature, and they sought to have the New Jersey statute repealed. This was as early as 1815, when Southard had been licensed only four years. He was employed, in connection with Joseph Hopkinson, to appear at the hearing before the New Jersey Legislature for Ogden and Dod. Thomas Addis Emmet
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represented Fulton and Livingston. Mr. Sonthard failed in convincing the Legislature that the act should not be repealed, but he succeeded in establishing a reputation for clearness of utterance, for keenness in debate, for breadth of intellect, for profound argument, for legal acumen, which placed him in the front rank of the lawyers of the country, and he found it unnecessary thereafter to seek clients; they sought him. In 1816 he was elected a member of the As- sembly, and during his term of office was chosen an asso- ciate justice of the Supreme Court, being one of the young- est men who ever bekl that position in New Jersey. He was five years on the bench, and in 1821 was elected United States senator. Now Mr. Southard had reached the sphere in which he was most fitted to act, and which he was eminently capable of adorning.
ITe was made senator at a most critical period in the political his- tory of the republic. The country was in a ferment: the Missouri question had been agitating the public mind for three years, and was still unsettled. That State had applied for admission into the Union, but the applica- tion had been rejected by a very large majority. The Southern members of Congress were loud in their denunci- ations of this action of the majority. The whole South was in a tumult and was stirred to the point of secession; acrimonious debate followed; the Union was in peril; black clouds lowered on the political horizon, and the hearts of irne patriots trembled at the imminent danger of disrup- tion and civil war. It is impossible fully to describe the
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situation. Conservative men were seeking some means by which the tumult might be stilled, and the terrible disaster averted which so many deemed inevitable.
Henry Clay was then a member of the lower house from Kentucky. He had moved that a joint committee should be appointed from both houses of Congress. His motion was adopted and a committee from the house was elected, of which he was the chairman. He was a veteran politician, had been a member of the Senate, was then speaker of the popular branch of Congress, and had the benefit of a long experience in political life and the prestige of a past bril- liant career. He was a Southern man, born in a slave State, was then a resident in and representative of another slave State, and was a slaveholder himself. Mr. Sonthard was a new member. He had had no experience in national political affairs as they were conducted in Congress. He lacked the influence gained by long service in the legisla- ture of the nation and the advantage of an acquaintance with the manner and form of congressional procedure. He was, however, a member of the committee appointed by the Senate as a part of the joint committee, and was intensely moved by the alarming exigencies of the occasion. New Jersey, the State he represented, occupied a position in the country with her territory near to both sections, and this rendered her neutral between the North and South. While the majority of its citizens were opposed to slavery, still that institution existed within her borders in full force.
Mr. Southard, therefore, was ready to support such measures as would be conciliatory and would meet the ap- proval of the leaders of the contending parties. He had prepared some resolutions and submitted them to Mr. Clay, who at once approved of them. It was agreed then that Mr. Southard should present them in the Senate. But on
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the morning of the very day that they were to be offered in that body Mr. Clay urged that they should be presented by him in the House. The New Jersey senator yielded, and the Kentucky representative brought them without altera- tion before the lower branch of Congress, where, after a severe struggle, they were passed, and then sent to the Senate, which approved them, and they became a part of the law of the land. They answered the purpose for which they were prepared and passed. The danger, apparently so imminent, was averted; the passions of men were soothed, and the country was quieted for a time.
These were the celebrated Missouri Compromise Reso- Intions for which Mr. Clay has been so much lauded. But they were really the product of the great intellect of the New Jersey senator, who is entitled to the glory, whatever it may be, resulting from their creation and effects.
A pleasing incident connected with this transaction arose from the fact that the father of Senator Southard was a congressman from New Jersey at the time, and was also a member of the joint committee.
While a tutor and student in Virginia Mr. Sonthard had met James Monroe, and had become his warm friend and ardent admirer. The friendship was reciprocated, and when Monroe became President he remembered his youth- ful associate and made him Secretary of the Navy. This was in 1823. On the accession of John Quincy Adams to the presidency he continued Mr. Southard in the position, thus giving testimony of the appreciation in which the Jerseyman was held by the Massachusetts statesman and adding a high and merited compliment to the secretary for his ability in the performance of duty.
In 1829 Mr. Southard was made attorney-general; in 1832 he was again returned to the Senate, and was re-elected in
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1836. In 1841 William H. Harrison died, soon after being inaugurated President. This event created a vacancy in the Senate by the withdrawal of John Tyler from that body as its presiding officer to assume the presidency. Sena- tor Southard, prior to the decease of Harrison, had been elected president of the Senate, and this virtually made him Vice-President. He died in 1842, in Virginia, beloved by his friends and associates and respected by all who came within the circle of his influence. Among the eulogies de- livered in the Senate chambers when his death was an- nouneed to that body none was more feeling, warmer, or more sympathetic than that delivered by Senator King, from Alabama, one of his former political opponents.
William Lewis Dayton was another distinguished Jersey- man who obtained honor in two widely different spheres of action : as a jurist and as a statesman. He was born at Basking Ridge in 1807, and was descended from a family which has given several prominent men to the service of their country. One of these was a general in the Revolu- tionary Army; another was a member of the convention which framed the Federal Constitution, afterward a repre- seutative and speaker of the House of Representatives, and subsequently senator from New Jersey.
Young Dayton had excellent opportunities for obtain- ing academic instruction. Basking Ridge was remarkable at that time for its schools, and some of the very best talent was employed in conducting them. He was educated in his preparation for college at these schools, and after the proper time entered Princeton University and was grad- nated, with no particular honor, in 1825. In fact neither his academic nor collegiate life gave much promise of his future greatness. He seemed dull, slow in comprehension, and not at all alert in his studies.
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He entered the office of Peter D. Vroom, one of New Jer- sey's most accomplished lawyers, as a student-at-law, and was licensed in 1830, as an attorney, and as counsellor in 1833. He removed to Freehold, in Monmonth County, and remained there until he was appointed justice of the Su- preme Court. His health was not robust, and at one time he was quite slender in person. It is altogether possible that this physical defeet had some influence on his mental activity. He required strong impulse to arouse him into action. He was not what could truthfully be called an indolent man. His mind certainly was alert enough, but he did not, by any means, assert his full pow- er's on every occasion, and might be described as an unequal man, sometimes ex- hibiting great powers of in- tellect, especially when obliged to act, think, and speak independently, at other times disappointing WILLIAM L. DAYTON. his friends. But he had within himself the elements of greatness, and when fully aroused was equal to any emergency and competent to grapple with the most abstruse principles.
A fortunate circumstance brought him into notice as a lawyer while practicing at Freehold. An indictment was found against a client for assault and battery. After ex- amining into the case he feared that the defendant could not be acquitted on the merits of his case, and therefore strove to find some technicality upon which he might base
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a motion to quash the indictment. His examination re- vealed the fact that the grand jury which returned the in- dictment had not been legally summoned, and he chal- lenged the validity of its findings. His motion was suc- cessful and the indictment was quashed. Of course every other criminal proceeding based on the action of the grand jury at that term was dismissed.
This brought him speedily into public notice. Clients flocked to his office and his practice was largely increased. He was naturally an ambitious man, and, not satisfied with the acquisition of legal honor, he longed for a more enlarged sphere and sought political preferment. This was soon ac- corded to him. That was the day when voters were di- vided into two great parties, Whig and Democrat. Mr. Dayton was a decided Whig in politics. Monmouth was overwhelmingly Democratic, and it seemed hopeless for him to expect an election to any political office which was in the gift of the people. But he was a born politician, and, rising to the situation, entered into the contest with a de- termination to succeed. His party nominated him as a candidate for the Council, as the higher branch of the Legis- lature was then called. He was at the head of his ticket, and succeeded not only in securing his own election, but also carried with him his fellow candidates.
He had now found his proper sphere of action. His am- bition was for a public life, and rightfully so. Such natures as his must find their true position, and whatever trammels might obstruct or obstacles oppose, the end was sure and certain. A new field of endeavor was opened to his aspira- tions, and in this arena he was destined to gain his greatest glory and win his greenest laurels. He was a young man, just thirty. untried in politics as a legislator, for he had never been in office. He at once became the leader of his
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party in the Legislature, and prominent in every movement in the Council. It soon became patent to every thoughtful observer that the proper place for a man of Mr. Dayton's consummate abilities was in the domain of politics, and here there began for him a career of almost unexampled activity and brilliant success.
Mr. Dayton's ambition was not that of the demagogue; he was a broad minded patriot of high resolves and noble aims. He never descended to the low arts which too often characterize those who seek political preferment ; he never did a mean act; he never sullied his life TORN JAN 21-18-3 by baseness. Ik loved office, not so ERKMONT, much for the honor 'Q' NHOF TOO gained by its pos- session as for the opportunity it af- forded him of ae- complishing good for the republic. His merits
manded that respect which obliged his party to offer him office that he had not sought.
While he was a member of the Council a radical change was made in the jurisprudence of the State. The Conris of Common Pleas of the several counties had, as they still have, jurisdiction over all civil actions. Issues made up in causes instituted in the Supreme Court were sent for trial to the circuits of that court in the several counties. Those circuits were presided over by one of the justices of
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the Supreme Court. But if the amount recovered did not exceed two hundred dollars plaintiffs were obliged to pay their own costs. The judges of the Common Pleas Courts were generally laymen, uneducated and unfitted for their position. A vicions system had obtained in their appoint- ment, which was given as reward for political activity. The evils arising from this condition of affairs became unbear- able, and lawyers and litigants were anxiously seeking for some relief. An acute minded lawyer from Essex County, -Alexander C. M. Pennington, introduced a law which pro- vided for the establishment of Circuit Courts in the several counties of the State, with statutory jurisdiction over civil actions, giving costs in cases where one hundred dollars were recovered. These courts took the place of the Com- mon Pleas and relieved litigants from the burdens incident to the old system. The justices of the Supreme Court pre- sided over these new tribunals, as well as in the old circuits, so that lawyers took the place of uneducated laymen as judges.
Mr. Dayton was chairman of the committee on the judi- ciary and aided greatly in the passage of the new law. It is very doubtful whether it would have passed but for his intelligent and effective assistance, as it met with consider- able opposition.
On the 28th of February, 1838, while still a member of the Council, he was made an associate justice of the Supreme Court. He was then hardly thirty-one years old, but soon manifested, notwithstanding his youth, his entire fitness for the position. He remained on the bench nearly three years, resigning on the 18th of February, 1841, and returned to the practice of his profession. The reason assigned for this step was that the salary of the office was not sufficient to support his family.
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WILLIAM L. DAYTON
At this time Mr. Southard was senator from New Jersey, but he died the next year, and this opened the way for Mr. Dayton to reach that position for which he seemed best fitted, both by his inclination and by the bent of his intel- lectual nature. Governor William Pennington commis- sioned him, in the interim of the Legislature, to fill the va- caney occasioned by Mr. Sonthard's death. His entry into so important a body as the United States Senate was made at a time when men of talent and wisdom were needed in the national councils. The Whig party had succeeded at the previous election in carrying their candidate, General William Henry Harrison, into the President's chair. llis death, very soon after his in- anguration, had elevated John Tyler as his successor, but it was soon evi- dent that he was intending to prove a traitor to the party which had placed him in that position. The sit- uation presented embarrassments which other men might have found Mh Parution overwhelming. Tyler's defection ere- ated a condition of affairs in connec- tion with other circumstances which plainly indicated that the Whig party was fast losing its grip on the people, and that the power which seemed assured by the election of Harrison was slipping away from that organization. The new senator bad no easy task before him, but his cool head, his equable temperament, his calm foresight, and his great ability enabled him to avoid the dangers which a more in- Terior man could not have avoided. He spoke seldom, and only when occasion demanded, but he then demon- strated that, though so silent, he was equal to any emer-
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geney. He soon impressed himself upon his fellow senators and was placed upon several of the most important com- mittees.
At the formation of the Republican party he took an act- ive and prominent part in shaping and moulding its policy, and soon became influential in that organization. In 1856 Jolin C. Fremont was nominated for President, with Will- iam L. Dayton as Vice-President. These nominations were not received with entire satisfaction by thoughtful Repub- licans, many of whom believed that it would have been much better if the names on the ticket had been reversed.
1866
AND-
HONOR
CAMPAIGN MEDALS.
No one whose judgment was of any value imagined that the candidates could be elected. They were not, but through no fault of the candidate for Vice-President.
Ilis term of office as senator expired in 1851, and, the Democratic party being then in power, Commodore Robert F. Stockton was appointed his successor. While in the Senate Mr. Dayton measured swords with some of the great- est men in that body and did not hesitate to try his strength with Daniel Webster himself. He lost nothing by the com- parison, which, of course, was made between his efforts and those of his antagonists.
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In 1857 Mr. Dayton was appointed attorney-general of New Jersey by William A. Newell, then governor. His rival candidates for the position were Frederick T. Fre- linghuysen, afterwards Secretary of State under President Arthur, and Cortlandt Parker, one of the most distinguished lawyers the State ever produced.
In 1860 Lincoln was elected President, and the eyes of all Jerseymen were turned to Senator Dayton as a proper mem- ber of his Cabinet. Lincoln desired to appoint him, and would have done so, but it was thought that, under the cir- emustances, other States had more powerful claims than New Jersey in the selection of the members of his political family. But he determined to show his appreciation of his merits and ability by placing him in such a prominent posi- tion that there could be no question as to the opinion in which he held him. To use his own words : " I then thought of the French mission and wondered if that would not suit him. I have put my foot down and will not be moved. I shall offer that place to Mr. Dayton."
Ile did make the offer to the senator and it was accepted. The position, honorable as it was, was no sineenre; it was at that time the most important and most embarrassing embassy in the gift of the President. Civil war broke out between the North and the South, the emissaries of the Con- federaey swarmed in Paris, and the Emperor of the French was more than half inclined to throw his influence in favor of the Southern cause and to recognize the independence of its government. He had actually accorded belligerent rights to it. With consummate tact, and with far-reach- ing foresight, the American minister thwarted the plans of the Southerners, and finally succeeded in inducing the French government to adopt a policy materially crippling the Confederacy and greatly aiding in the result. Mr. Day-
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
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ton lived long enough in Paris to secure the confidence of the French Emperor and of his court, and to render the most inestimable service to his country. He died very sud- denly, at Paris, on the first day of December, 1864, before the war closed, but when it required very little sagacity to understand that the end of the great struggle was near.
THE "MAYFLOWER."
CHAPTER IV
SOMERSET COUNTY-CONTINUED
HE first settlers in Bernard Township were Scotch Presbyterians, which element, in some measure, is still represented in the present inhabitants. The first actual settler, so far as can be learned by any records now in existence, was James Pitney. He was an Englishman, a button maker, who had his shop on Lon- don Bridge. He came from England with James Alex- ander, the father of Lord Stirling, to whom he was in some way related, either by blood or marriage. He went from New Brunswick in New Jersey to Somerset County and look possession of some land there. He is mentioned in a deed executed in 1720 as being in possession of some land on the east side of the north branch of Dead River. A re- cont author, Ludwig Schumacher, in his delightful book, " The Somerset Hills," speaks of him as a squatter. This can not be true, as his connection with the Alexander fam- ily would have enabled him to secure all the land he needed, and his after history showed that it was not necessary that he should adopt such measures for a livelihood. He was a Presbyterian and connected with the church of that denomi- uation at Basking Ridge, and became a grantee, with other persons, in a deed to the trustees of that church for a lot for the erection of a building for worship and for a ceme- tery lot.
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Bernard Township was named in honor of Francis Ber- nard, colonial governor of New York and New Jersey in 1756. He held office for about two years, and was then transferred to Massachusetts to become the chief magistrate of that colony. He was very popular in New Jersey as gov- ernor, but was very obnoxious in New England. Some doggerel of the time will give an idea of the poetry of the day and of the estimation in which he was held in the dif- ferent parts of the country. Some student of Princeton Col- lege thus sang about him :
We sing great George upon the throne, And Amherst, great in arms ; While Bernard, in their milder forms, Makes the royal virtues known.
A New England poet uses a different note :
And if such men are by God appointed, The Devil might be the Lord's anointed.
Not many representatives of the old families who origin- ally settled in Bernard remain, but some are still to be found. Several of these original families are represented by residents now in the township, not of the original name, but descended from daughters who have married husbands of different patronymics than their own.
Just below Basking Ridge the Passaic reaches Milling- ton, a small village stretching on both sides of the stream with its larger part on the Morris County side. Here the river assumes a character not found anywhere else in its whole course. It has forced its way through Long Hill, at Millington, forming a gorge of various depths and extend- ing for about a quarter of a mile. Through this gorge the stream rushes with some velocity. The ravine is steep- sided, about seventy-five feet wide at the top, lessening quite gradually in width before reaching the bottom. Although
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